The empowering of the margins
In our midweek meetings we are starting to read through the first few chapters of Exodus. We want to look at the business of liberation, the process of moving from slavery to freedom and the people God chooses as agents of liberation in this narrative. Some of things we are picking-up are awesome. Firstly we are discussing the concept of empire, domination, power and resources, and how God always sides with the downtrodden, the outcasts, the down-and-outs, often in the face of the people who are "with-it" and have it all together.
In the first chapter we picked up on the theme of immigration and how the dominant power's reaction to immigration is one of fear and a consequent reaction that is oppressive. We discussed immigration in Europe in the US and in Gibraltar - how reactive positions of oppression are taken by the powerful state over against the immigrant, and how issues of justice are at stake even as we are called into the gap as agents of healing.